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The FBI targeted Insane Clown Posse fans; now they're marching on Washington CREDIT: Photo for The Washington Post by Devin Doyle Friday Sep 1, 2017 at 8:00 AM Justin Jouvenal - The Washington Post The Juggalos, the most rabid and notorious fans in all of music, were restless. Wild hoots erupted as a tattooed man at the back of the tent hurled an empty pizza box skyward. It twirled and crashed on a group at the front waiting for their beloved Insane Clown Posse to address the crowd from the stage. Those at the front turned and retaliated, launching an overstuffed trash bag that exploded on the ground and vomited its rancid contents across the feet of people in the rear. In response, an empty two-liter soda bottle arced through the air like an artillery shell, hitting a man in front with a dull thud. A full-on garbage war had now erupted, as the dueling groups of fans sent cans, foam plates and fast-food bags whizzing back and forth. "F--- the back!" the front rumbled. "F--- the front!" the back volleyed. Women caught between the warring factions casually popped umbrellas to shield themselves from the trash juices raining down, as if dealing with a passing shower. A fat drop of mystery liquid plopped on the arm of a man standing near me. "Was that water?" he asked a friend before swiping it with an index finger and lifting it to his nose. "Yeah, we're good." And so the mayhem went on for roughly 40 minutes. In fact, this is how it goes every year at the Gathering of the Juggalos, a four-day festival that hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse (ICP) organizes for its fans. The nearly-two-decade old event - held this year in Oklahoma City in late July - combines the communal spirit of Burning Man, the debauchery of a NASCAR infield and the edgy theater of a freak show. Often derided as "white trash," ICP and its fan base have a penchant for garbage throwing and chronically soaking one another with cheap Faygo soda (their drink of choice). "Saturday Night Live" has repeatedly ribbed them, and they are arguably in strong contention for the title of America's most hated subculture. But - amid all the trash-throwing, which served as a prelude to the "seminar," a key event at the annual gathering, where ICP offers its fans a sort of state of the Juggalo union - a question was running through my mind: Are these people gang members? If the FBI is to be believed, every one of the hundreds of Juggalos under this tent were potentially part of a criminal syndicate. That's because in 2011, the FBI took the extraordinary and unprecedented step of labeling the entire fan base of ICP a gang, placing them alongside the Bloods, Crips and MS-13, after a string of crimes carried out by people identified as Juggalos. The move touched off one of the strangest controversies at the crossroads of pop culture, criminal justice and the First Amendment in contemporary America. ICP and the Juggalos were outraged, saying the FBI effectively criminalized being a fan of a musical group. It had far-reaching and severe consequences. Juggalos not associated with gangs have reported being repeatedly stopped by police, added to gang databases, blocked from the military, placed on stricter forms of probation, suspended from school and fired from jobs. Those problems sparked a campaign by ICP and the Juggalos to get the FBI to publicly repudiate the gang label. They say their right to free speech, right to assemble and the good ol' American right to rawk are being violated. Their fight has drawn in the American Civil Liberties Union and spurred a federal lawsuit. And the effort moves into a bigger spotlight on Sept. 16 with easily the most unusual protest to hit the nation's capital in a year full of them: In a rally being organized by ICP, the group's fans will descend on the Mall for a Juggalo March on Washington. It will be an easy spectacle to lampoon, yet at the heart of the protest will be a quite serious question: While Juggalos can certainly be accused of criminally bad taste, are they actual criminals? --- ICP got its start in Detroit in the late '80s and became known for over-the-top, slasher-movie-style lyrics, clown makeup and the carnival theatrics of its shows. With its abrasive rap-metal sound and cartoonish outrageousness, the band - composed of two singers, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope - is a kind of mash-up of Kiss, the early Beastie Boys and professional wrestling. ICP has sold millions of records, but it has remained largely out of the spotlight because radio and MTV refuse to play the group's explicit, gory and sometimes misogynistic songs. Oklahoma City approached the Gathering of the Juggalos with all the joy of a town that has learned it has been selected to be the site of a toxic waste dump. "I'm going to be watching it very closely," City Council member John Pettis told the Oklahoman newspaper the day before the event began at a dusty and forlorn 900-acre recreation area that sits on the outskirts of town, between a metal scrap yard and a sand pit. Pettis urged residents to report any problems with Juggalos to police. The same article noted that a man who once listed ICP on his MySpace page had committed one of the "most infamous mass murders in recent Oklahoma history." On TV, a newscaster ominously intoned that police were on "high alert." --- ICP organizes and books the gathering but says it is a money loser. There are different levels of packages; this year general admission was $190. No posh pavilions or corporate branding - as have become the norm at festivals like Coachella - can be found here. The gathering is raw and independent, partly by choice and partly by circumstance. After all, what business would lend its name to something law enforcement essentially considers a gang rally? All over, people wandered from camp to camp speaking with those they had just met as if they were longtime friends. The Scrub Care Unit offered food, water and care for the Juggalos, some of whom come with little more than the shirts on their backs. Some Juggalos drain their savings or go into debt to be here each year, just to be with old friends. Juggalo Batman was a good example of someone who thrived at the festival. When I first encountered him, his cape was billowing, and the dildo at his crotch was swinging crazily as he ran toward a trolley passing his campsite. The riders splashed him with water and Faygo while shouting the name everyone uses for him as he wanders the grounds like some sort of louche mayor: "Batd---!" Huffing back to his camp, Batman - a.k.a. Mike Paukner, 44 - explained his origin story. He had been a security guard at a Tulsa apartment complex, where the police gave him the nickname Batman. One year, he mysteriously received a Speedo, and later a friend gave him the other component of his outfit. Voilà, an X-rated superhero was born. "Security is my love," Paukner said. "I love to help people not be victims." That included a woman who was visiting his camp. Paukner had taken her in after she lost her apartment. He said it's what Juggalos do, and the woman has not forgotten the gesture. "He's not my blood," she said, "but he's my brother." Back in the real world, Juggalos often have a hard time. A little later, Paukner said he had been fired from his job as a security guard because his company found out he was a Juggalo and, thus, thought he was a gang member. He now spends his days cleaning an industrial freezer, no longer helping catch the bad guys. "I've helped arrest gang members," Paukner said. "Juggalos aren't it." --- The four-day festival had built toward this moment. Crews made the final preparations onstage, wheeling out large drums that were stocked with two-liter bottles of Faygo. The crowd's anticipation grew as they squeezed together at the front of the stage like a fist clenching. With arms raised and Faygo flying, they ecstatically chanted for nearly a minute: "Fam-muh-lee! Fam-muh-lee! Fam-muh-lee!"